Opportunities for plastics in India says BPF

A report from the British Plastics Federation has said that there are huge opportunities for growth in plastic use in India.

It says that there are 25,000 companies in the plastics sector in India employing 3 million people with domestic polymer production of 5.72 million tonnes in 2009. Consumption of plastics is growing in India by 16 per cent per annum, which is higher than China with 10 per cent growth and compares to the 2.5 per cent growth seen in the UK.

There is huge demand for PVC in the country due to the rapidly expanding construction industry, but only 50 per cent of the demand is met domestically. Polypropelene growth is expected to be highest at 18 per cent from 2.2 million tonnes of consumption to 2.6 million tonnes this year.

In terms of recycled material, the report says: “Despite the fact that India has one of the highest plastics recycling rates in the world (an estimated 47 per cent of all plastics is recycled) the demand for recycled plastics is huge, especially for commodity plastics such as PP, PET, PS, LDPE and HDPE.”

The report also notes that the automotive industry is the second fastest growing in the world and that there are also huge opportunities in the under-developed packaging industry.